Wednesday, June 3, 2009

In other words, the Latino Community is HARDENING on the Republicans vicious attacks on Judge Sonia Sotomayor. Now the back pedaling is starting.

Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich led the retreat Wednesday, saying he went too far when he called Sotomayor a racist based on a speech in which she said that a wise Latina would make a better decision in a discrimination case than a white man would.

Radio talk show host Rush Limbaugh , while not retracting his description of the judge as a racist, later echoed Gingrich in saying that her long judicial record warrants more consideration. Limbaugh said he might even support her if he thinks there's a chance she'd oppose abortion rights.

The retreat came as Republicans in the Senate , as well as in some statehouses and elsewhere, balked at the incendiary talk, calling it a mistake to judge Sotomayor before her record could be examined or hearings held, and a political gaffe to offend Hispanics, the nation's fastest-growing bloc of voters.

Let me state this, I have been around politics for a long time and after a bombardment of calling Judge Sotomayor every name but the Virgin Mary, you do not change course unless you must. And the Republicans must.

The Republicans not only are on the brink of losing the Latino vote, but the women vote as well. And you don't perform an about face unless you have data to prove it to be so, and I am sure their polling numbers are in the toilet already flushed down.

The retreat came as Republicans in the Senate , as well as in some statehouses and elsewhere, balked at the incendiary talk, calling it a mistake to judge Sotomayor before her record could be examined or hearings held, and a political gaffe to offend Hispanics, the nation's fastest-growing bloc of voters.

Some of these Republicans were especially troubled that the attacks on Sotomayor, coupled with former Vice President Dick Cheney's attack on former Secretary of State Colin Powell and other moderate Republicans, could worsen the splits in the party and paint all Republicans as extremists.

This comes at a time when two elections in a row showed the American people turning away from the Bush-Cheney administration, and the prospects for a Republican comeback are clouded by polls showing the ranks of people calling themselves Republicans dropping to the lowest point in at least a quarter century.

These Republican roses are stinking pretty badly right now. The party of male, pale and stale men. That is their problem.

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